I mentioned this in the first recap I was supposed to write this year, the one that Gertrude Stein wrote for me. Bud Girl asked me about it, and they just came out with the dates for 2014, April 4-6. We've been for two years now, and you can look at the past programs here:
http://foodwaystexas.com/events/past-events/symposia/ The lectures can be pretty fun (Moderator: What do you do when a vegetarian comes through the line? Aaron Franklin: We offer them pie.), but what's truly spectacular are the meals. Just look through the Our Barbecue, Our Selves meals: Aaron Franklin, Bryan Caswell, Gregg Gatlin, Hugo Ortega . . . The worst meal we ever had was by Justin Yu, and it was unforgettable. Bycatch. It started with fried black drum fins as an appetizer and riffed on from there. It was so specatularly strange that they had to serve Texas saki.
It is truly great fun.
Edited to fix my spelling.